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Sunday, August 7, 2011

Joseph, that's a great question. Not many leagues offer points for return yards, but if yours does, you will want to pay attention! A generous reward like 10 yards per point changes the dynamic of the league and your draft strategy.

Let's start with some basics:

In 2010, the top return specialist from a yardage perspective was the Titans Marc Mariani who tallied 1,859 total return yards. From a pure fantasy point perspective, those are some big numbers. Consider how glad you would be to have a mere 1,400 yard Running Back or 1,200 yard Wide Receiver to put that in perspective. Mariani wasn't an aberration either, 17 players managed greater than 1,000 return yards while 6 managed greater than 1,500 return yards.

Scoring is a different story, the league leader for return touchdowns had 3 in 2010 and 4 in 2011.

Kickoff Returners get more action than Punt Returners. Kick Returns, on average, are also longer plays than Punt Returns.

Last note, Kick/Punt Returners are more likely to be WR than any other offensive position. Keep this in mind when determining positional depth.

Who to target:

It's hard to say without knowing the full scoring system, so we'll have to take this from a general perspective and break return specialists into different categories:

Players You Would Target Anyways (Current Top 200 Overall Rank)
Dez Bryant WR DAL (#36)
Percy Harvin WR MIN (#61) - Vikings new #1 may be on returns less in 2011
DeSean Jackson WR PHI (#65)
C.J. Spiller RB BUF (#77)
Jacoby Ford WR OAK (#92)
Mike Thomas WR JAX (#94)
Davone Bess WR MIA (#109)
Jordy Nelson WR GB (#136)
Emmanuel Sanders WR PIT (#143)
Jacoby Jones WR HOU (#179)
Danny Amendola WR STL (#181) - Top 10 in 2010 and 2009

Ranked Outside the Top 200, With Offensive Sleeper/Replacement Potential
Andre Roberts WR ARI
Devin Hester WR CHI
Dexter McCluster WR KC
Eddie Royal WR DEN
Joshua Cribbs WR CLE
Julian Edelman WR NE
Mike Goodson RB CAR

Role Not Fully Understood, Potential Value on Offense and Returns
Brad Smith WR BUF
Darren Sproles RB NO

Pure Return Specialists, All 1,000+ Return Yards in 2010, Little Offensive Value
Marc Mariani WR TEN - Top 1 in 2010
Leon Washington RB SEA - Top 3 in 2010
Stefan Logan WR DET - Top 3 in 2010 and 2011
Brandon Banks WR WAS - Top 5 in 2010
Eric Weems WR ATL - Top 10 in 2010, Top 5 in 2009
LaRod Stephens-Howling RB ARI - Top 10 in 2010 and 2011

There are a few more names out there and there's still a lot of time for roster changes in the preseason so keep an eye on the news out of camp, but hopefully this primer will help you decide which players on your draft list get a boost for their return abilities.

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